WITH THE PROPHETS. 



iSr 



tip, gave him a present of fifty pounds, and 

 judging from his correspondence and the many 

 persons who evidently call to consult him he 

 must be making money, but whether or not he 

 may be taking care of it is another matter. I 

 suspect, however, it is with him as it often is 

 with others similarly circumstanced, a case of 

 • lightly come, lightly go.' " 



This plan, often since adopted, of sending 

 different horses for wins and places to the 

 different applicants for tips, was in my opinion 

 quite a stroke of genius ; the " fine art " of 

 tipping indeed. 



Such reminiscences might be multiplied. I 

 was at one time brought into contact with several 

 adventurers of similar kidney to those described, 

 and there are no doubt aged turfites who could 

 supplement what I have said. Previous even 

 to the period I have been attempting to illustrate 

 there was being published a regular racing 

 circular, the precursor of the Lockets, J udexes, and 

 JValmsleys of a later period, whilst newspaper 

 tipping, especially in the columns of certain of 

 the London weekly newspapers, was greatly 

 extended ; in not a few of them a " real poet " 

 gushed forth his prophetic lore, and, as has 

 been stated already, not a few of the poetic 

 predictions perpetrated some fifty years ago 

 were exceedingly felicitous in their diction, con- 

 sidering the sometimes very uncouth matter that 

 had of necessity to be dealt with. I remember 

 reading upon one occasion a collection of such 

 poems in a Bow Street tavern (it was kept, 

 I think, by Baron Nicholson), and of being- 

 struck with the halting lines and bald phraseology 



